The Uvalde School District Police Chief, in charge of operations when a gunman killed 19 children and two female teachers on May 24, has been suspended, the district superintendent announced Wednesday.
The announcement comes a day after the Texas director of public safety slammed the police response to the massacre as an “absolute failure.”
“Since the beginning of this horrific event, I have maintained that the District will wait until the investigation is complete before making staffing decisions. […]. Due to the remaining lack of clarity and the unknown timing of when I will receive the results of the investigation, I have made the decision to place the Chief [Pete] Arredondo on administrative leave, as of today’s date,” Superintendent Hal Harrell said in a statement.
On Tuesday, the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, Steven McCraw, had in particular castigated the fact that Pete Arredondo had decided to “put the lives of agents before those of children”.
“We know one thing: there is compelling evidence that law enforcement’s response to the attack on Robb Elementary School was an utter failure and goes against everything we have learned in the past. two decades since the Columbine massacre” at a high school in 1999, he said.
The time it took for police — over an hour — to enter the classroom and kill the 18-year-old gunman has come under heavy criticism since the killings, and Mr. McCraw drove home the point during that televised hearing.
“The officers had weapons, the children did not. The officers had bulletproof vests, the children did not. The agents were trained, not the shooter, ”he said again.
The mayor of Uvalde also announced on Tuesday that Robb Elementary School would be “demolished”.
“You can never ask a child or a teacher to come back to this school,” said Don McLoughlin.